Rob and Melissa Stephenson, from Flea Market Flipper, talk about whether it's ethical to resell medical equipment on eBay.
Check out our free workshop: https://learn.fleamarketflipper.com/flipping-workshop-new--0b9f0
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fleamrktflipper/
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
Is It Ethical To Resell Medical Equipment On eBay?
Rob: What's up, pro flippers. On today's episode, we are talking about is it ethical to sell or resell medical equipment on eBay.
Melissa: I am excited to dive into this. I have a lot of thoughts on this and I can't wait to dive in.
Rob: Alright guys, today we are talking about medical equipment and more specifically, is it ethical?
Is it something that you should be doing? Is it something that we should be doing in selling it, reselling it on eBay?
Melissa: Okay, so this all started with a post actually. Before we go into the post, so reselling in general can also be controversial in some, for, to some people, people get upset when resellers, if you've gone on any YouTube channel of any reseller, there'll be people saying you're stealing from poor people.
So that is the common thing that people get is you're stealing from poor people who need stuff. And a lot of times it's clothes, you know, people, resellers tend to go for the higher end clothes, but I mean, textiles is a huge issue in this country. I mean, we just throw out stuff and with fast fashion there's clothes everywhere.
There's no shortage of clothes for people who need them, for sure. But we don't even sell clothes, so that's not even a thing for us. We'll dive into specifically medical equipment in a second, but one other one just in general, reselling. I remember a comment we got was a cooktop. You know, we sell a lot of appliances.
We have a lot of high end appliances is typically what we like to do because there's just so much profit margin in them. There was one cooktop you found on the side of the road, somebody had thrown out. You sold it for like $1,500 for $1,700. And somebody had commented, that a homeless person could have used that.
And I was like, it's not something that, you have to plug it into a kitchen like you actually have to it, they need a kitchen. They don't have a home, they don't have a kitchen. I don't understand that. No, they can't use this. This is not meant for that. This, they cannot use this. So anyways, it's just thinking through some of these things that is pretty interesting to hear some of the, the dialogue that comes. Dialogue, yes. That comes back when we
Rob: do post on stuff that we are flipping. So, but more specifically today, it's talking about even just reselling, medical equipment, whether that's a wheelchair, whether it's a stretcher, whether it's something, that can be resold that has more life left into it.
Is that something that we should be doing? Because we do get comments about, people think that we should be finding that stuff and then donating it to somebody who needs it. And that is one of those comments that we will get sometimes, when Melissa posts a reel or something like that, and it goes big, there are people come outta the woodworks and will say stuff like that.
So that's what we're diving into, is that really ethical for us to be able to do this?
Melissa: So some of the thoughts on that would be. So this is specifically to a post I just posted recently. I posted it before, but like we always get comments on, the wheelchairs or something that we should have donated them, and you can, people can do that, but like, this one was on marketplace for $250.
I think it was listed for about six months. This is the specific one that you bought. List it for six months, didn't sell because somebody else said, oh, somebody else could have bought that. They could have, but they had six months and it still sat there. Would you rather it sit there or would you rather it actually go to somebody who needed it and because we're willing to ship it, that is where it comes in, that it can actually get to a person that needs it for a fraction of the cost.
I mean, if they try to buy, that's the biggest point, new. Like the healthcare system is crazy how much they charge. Like they're ridiculous because they're using insurance companies and the whole system is messed up, but they charge ridiculous amounts of money. And if somebody doesn't have insurance or they don't have access to Medicaid or something, they have to pay out of pocket and then they, they can't get it half the time.
So.
Rob: I think this one that you're actually referring to a post that we did, the lady was so excited. She was and so happy. Yes. That she found ours. She bought it and got it delivered directly to her house. And she was renting one at the time, wasting money on renting it. And she was able to buy her own because we gave it to her for a fraction of what the cost of a new one was.
So yeah, that's the biggest thing is we're providing a service where we're actually getting these in a local area where we can bring them back to the market, back to somebody who really, really needs them. And it's our way of helping, and we're not price gouging. We're not even charging what somebody has to pay full price for these. No. We're giving them a huge, huge discount. I think about a wheelchair that I have right now listed, that has not sold yet, but I, I believe I paid, I bought three things from a guy who was getting three rid of a wheelchair, a power wheelchair, a manual wheelchair, and then a stander.
All three of those, and we sold the manual wheelchair and we sold the stander, but he charged me $300 for all of them. Come to find out, he told me when I got there that the power wheelchair was like a $50,000 or a $60,000 wheelchair. Now he just got a new one. Because of, and it wasn't his, I believe it was his son's or something like that, but they had the insurance company buy them a brand spanking new one, and he didn't want to throw this one away.
He didn't want to donate it. He wanted to get a little bit of money out of it. So he sold it to us, which we were able to list it and we will, you know, ship it to the new owner when somebody finally does buy it. But that's showing the dis the difference between what and the retail value on this, like I said $40,000, $50,000. I think I have this one listed for like $10,000. We didn't pay that much for it. I bought it together, but I'm the one who went out and I'm the one who hunted this down and got it in my local area, cleaned it up, took pictures, and this is the, the money that we will make on these. Now, could I sell it for, you know, $500 or $500?
Could I sell it for a thousand? I totally could, but at the price we're selling it at it's a fifth of what the original retail price was on it. For somebody who can't afford it for insurance, but they'll be able to afford. Buying this really nice of a wheelchair for a fifth of the cost. That's huge.
That's huge to be able to do a service like that, to help people out as well.
Melissa: Yeah. That lady, I even remember with the wheel one wheelchair that I posted. She was saying she didn't feel safe. She had to rent a wheelchair in the one that was in, and she asked if you could ship it any faster. And I think you even did, you shipped it to her and you like paid the extra I think it was $400 for shipping, deliver. Have it delivered to her house. Yeah. So she could have it delivered to her house because she really needed it. Yeah. She didn't feel safe in her wheelchair. And so now, and she left great feedback 'cause she was super happy. So I, yeah. Anyway, so it's just fun.
It's. Well, fun. It's interesting just reading the comments of people because, and I even challenge them. Like I, I have a fun time talking to, I, I, I welcome open conversation. I don't like if people are just like rude and whatever, gross, then I delete them. But if they have a conversation, I'm happy to have a conversation with them.
Because like a, a lot of times. They're like, oh, you could have donated that. I'm like, and then I challenge people. You can do that too if you want to like go find something on marketplace. These are available. A lot of them are available for very cheap because people can't sell them in the local market.
It takes a special person that needs it and go find somebody to donate it to. And half the time it's just, it's easier to go and comment, point fingers, what people should do with their time and energy and resources and resources, versus what they're actually gonna do. So it's pretty, I challenge everybody pretty much.
Like who, who comments out. I'm like, okay, go ahead and do it. That's awesome. Because people don't know, like they don't know. We have places where we give, we do have, different organizations we give to. We don't, you know, really talk about that, that much. I, I don't, not that it's bragging or whatever, but how much we donate each year.
Like, I don't. That's not something we really share that much, but it's not really anybody's business either. So we donate to the causes that we feel are important to us. We have own convictions. Absolutely. Yes. So, so yeah. So if we can provide this service for somebody, to me that is, I don't know, it's something cool and, oh, another thing that I thought about on this one was, the first thing that we, I ever, this was even before we started posting on social media, before we even had our brand. Really? I would post on my personal Facebook page. So, like some of his fines and flips 'cause they're weird, like they kind of interesting. But one of the biggest ones that people commented on 'cause they were just so intrigued.
Like there was not like upset. They were just really intrigued. Was that prosthetic, the prosthetic knee that you did. That was before we had a flea market flipper. And you went and got it from the flea market? Yep. Came for you, bought it for $35, came back, sold it within 24 hours on eBay for a thousand dollars.
And he is like, crap, I sold it too cheap. But I think a dealer bought that, you said, right? Absolutely.
Rob: So.
Melissa: It was a prosthetic. So we sold several prosthetics and that's another thing. Like prosthetics and stuff. Some people don't even wanna touch them. Like you bought several from the flea market and everybody's like, just, they, like they'd rather scrap it. Half the medical stuff ends up in the, the landfill. Landfill anyway. Landfill. Yeah. And so because not the right, it can't get connected to the right person who needs it, so.
Rob: No. Yeah. So we're definitely doing a service. So do we believe it's unethical? We absolutely do not. We have our own convictions about what we do with our resources, with our finances, where we are convicted to do that, but at the same time, this is something where we honestly believe we are doing a service. We are helping people get it delivered to their house at a fraction of the cost that they would cost them to actually do it, go out and buy it. So no, we believe that we are doing a service and comment, let us know. Let us know what you guys think about this 'cause we get plenty of people on social who give us their 2 cents. But let us know what you think about that as well. We, we definitely, would like to hear from you.
Melissa: But I want, before we, you know, I wanted to say one another thing too. You have to also be careful 'cause medical equipment is not something that you can. Absolutely.
Always sell on eBay. Some things you can, Facebook even some people in that comment section also even said like, well, Facebook pulled my wheelchair that I was selling. So Facebook does even pull, they pulled, we tried to sell those oxygen machines. Yep. They pulled those from us. eBay pulled those.
Rob: Supposedly anything that requires a, what's it called? A prescription. Yeah. If a doctor has to prescribe you to get it, you're not supposed to be selling it, reselling it. You're not supposed to sell it on Facebook. You're not supposed to selling it on eBay. So those are the medical.
Melissa: So don't get flagged. Be careful with some of this stuff. You don't want, like CPAP machines, you can't sell anymore. Yep. So those kind things, which I still think it kind of stinks because some of that stuff, we have our own opinion about that as well. Some of that stuff it still can be used and now, like you can't sell it and you're not gonna be able to sell it locally.
Yeah. So now it just gets thrown in the trash like that sucks.
Rob: Like who? Nobody else. It's not like drugs. You're not selling drugs, you're selling something that actually absolutely helps some, helps somebody I know and, and it helps them, you know, without having to go and spend full costs for, for full price for that specific item.
So.
Melissa: But it's just now they have to go to insurance or they have to go through whatever and pay the hospital and pay all, you know, beaucoups amount of money for it to come, whatever. Anyways, that's, that's frustrating that you can't sell some of that stuff 'cause some of, yeah, it's not like you're prescribing drugs, you're not trying to resell that stuff.
You're reselling a machine that can help somebody. So, and I understand if it's something that could hurt somebody, but half that stuff is not, it's just something that can, no.
Rob: It's something somebody needs.
Melissa: That they just want you to buy a new one. Yeah. So, 'cause there's not really a place for that stuff to go other than the landfill.
Yeah. Right. Is there? No, even thrift stores won't even take half the stuff. So like, if a thrift store won't take it, Facebook marketplace, you can't sell it. eBay, you can't sell it and then it gets thrown in the trash. Yeah. And then nobody can use it.
Rob: I'm sure if you really, really looked, you probably could find people who take the donations, but who's gonna take the time to do that?
Melissa: Well, but there could be some nonprofits, and that was another thing I told somebody in the comments, like you could, you know, start a nonprofit to where you're collecting these things from people who are donating them and then finding the people who can, sell the, or who can use them. Yeah. So, but it is, it's a connection process and like we don't have the time and energy to do that at this moment in our life.
Maybe in 10 years we will, who knows? That we can, you know, find the stuff, find the right person, and then it be like a nonprofit situation. But right now we can still connect an item to a person who needs it, make some money for our time and get them the item at a, at a low cost. So, which we love to do.
I did say one thing in that post too. I talked about, you know, the reason why we, the goal for our finds is a 10x and that leaves enough wiggle room for eBay fees and shipping costs. So, like that one, we paid $250 for, we sold it for $2,500, but shipping fees were $400, which we paid for, and eBay fees were like $325 I think.
So we got about $1,525 profit and you had to let that one sit in a bag.
Rob: Was that the one? That was the one? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Right. I don't remember.
Melissa: I'm pretty sure that was the one. Yeah.
Rob: I remember two of the last ones that I sold. One of them had orange on it. Right. If it was the orange one, then yes.
Melissa: Yeah, yeah.
Rob: Yeah. This one we actually purchased from a lady who I felt really bad when I got there telling her that I wouldn't buy it. I know, because you, for almost walked $250, was it $250? Yeah, I almost walked away, but then I felt bad because I felt like she needed the money as well. So, but when I got there, the whole place really wreaked of cigarette smoke.
And I knew it was gonna be all over the wheelchair itself. And once I got it out, absolutely got it out, got it strapped and we got it. We bought it. But it, like you couldn't get the cigarette smoke smell out of it. So we ended up having to sit it for, I think I let it sit for like two weeks.
Melissa: I think you did. In a bag with baking soda.
Rob: And what I ended up doing was buying a mattress bag that you can buy at U-Haul. I think that's where I bought it from, like a mattress cover bag. Bought that and I drove the wheelchair into that, covered it with baking soda, just had head to toe baking soda all around the bag and all that.
Sealed it up and let it sit for a couple weeks and the baking soda actually pulled off all the cigarette smoke, off of the wheelchair to where we were able to sell it. And it was, didn't smell at all as cigarette smoke. So, that's one of those things that it was a little bit more work to get it up to par.
Melissa: More elbow grease involved,
Rob: but we also kept it out of the landfill. We kept it to recycle where somebody was able to use it and we give somebody an amazing deal on that, that wheelchair itself. So, all around a good service.
Melissa: It does make, it does make me sad how much stuff ends up in the landfill as far as that kind of stuff, because.
It really, at the end of the day, it's like the big pharmaceutical companies are just there to make more money. Like they just wanna in their, their markup. If you are mad at our markup, holy buckets, like their markup from what their cost to make it. Holy cow.
Rob: You think about a wheelchair that's a $50,000 wheelchair, do you think they have more than a thousand, $2,000 into that?
Absolutely not. It's crazy. They're making ridiculous markups on that, so that's crazy. But all that's a different topic. Yeah. We're just talking about what our convictions are and if it's right or wrong to actually be able to sell medical equipment to people.
Melissa: Yeah. So just again, be careful if you are doing it just to make sure, you know, it's not a pharmacy and eBay can pull some stuff.
I mean, we've had fine we've been able to do the, wheelchairs, stretchers. We did. We bought, yeah. Some people were upset about that too. We bought 12 stretchers. 'cause somebody, what did somebody comment? Somebody could have used that. Who buys their own stretcher? Do you ever, would you, do you buy your own stretcher when there's a medical emergency?
Rob: These are stretchers that go in the back of their ambulance. They're ambulance specific business that needs those.
Melissa: Yeah, it was a business and they were all mom and pop, like small. I guess how it works is. People subcontract, like mom and pop ambulance in different cities and stuff. And those are who we were selling to, transport, transport services.
So that's who we ended up selling it to. And people were really excited 'cause they were, we sold them for you know, cheap.
Rob: Huge discount. Huge discount from going and buying from the manufacturer. So.
Melissa: But who buys their own stretcher like that? Like that doesn't make any sense.
Rob: Yeah. So good rule of thumb, if you are looking at medical equipment to resell, make sure that it is something not prescription, that doesn't require a prescription, then you, you should be safe to be able to do it.
Always go on to eBay, check completed listings, make sure that they are selling. Sometimes you will find items that sneak through the cracks and they did sell them and they needed a prescription. So, so make sure you just do the research and make sure that the item that you are looking to purchase and resell does not need a prescription, that anybody can sell it.
And then you should be perfectly fine with, buying, reselling it.
Melissa: And if you do get a ding from eBay and they pull one of your listings, do not try to re-list it. Yeah. Because that is something that will get your accounts suspended, if not banned. Yep. If you try to re-list a medical piece of equipment that you've, they've already pulled, do not try to do it again.
They give you like a, a slap on the wrist the first time, and then after that, they will either suspend or ban your account. Yep. So just be careful, but you guys are awesome. Thanks for listening to our little rant.
Rob: You're amazing. And we can't wait to see you on the next episode.